[Mediawiki-l] Use of testing environment

[Raymond Wan]

Hi,


On Thu, Jun 17, 2010 at 16:40, Bernard at bernardHulsman.nl
<bernard at bernardhulsman.nl> wrote:
> This is to inform you that unauthorized use of the WETE testing
> environment, or derived work from the WETE, is illegal, no matter which
> new name (MediaWiki testing seems to be used now) is given to the
> testing environment.
>
> The Open Source license has been temporarily withdrawn due to abuse of
> the license. For more information see http://extensiontesting.wikiation.nl


As I've never used WETE before, this discussion has nothing to do with
me.  However, I thought what you said was "interesting" and decided to
search for it.  When I read what you said, it made me wonder if it's
possible to withdraw a license.  I guess one article says it isn't:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13556_3-9816749-61.html

Once you've set up a license and someone agreed to it at the point of
download or installation (wherever you put it), you can't change your
mind.  Of course, you can prevent future downloads and in a few cases
I've seen, future versions of the software end up being closed and the
one that was open is never improved or patched.  But it seems
impossible to be able to change a license after it was agreed upon...

I'm no lawyer and not even a user of WETE, but just thought you'd like
to know.  But you can take a look at the above article and others
through Internet searching to see for yourself...  I suppose we should
consider carefully before assigning an open source license to
something; not something that you can get back or undo easily.

Ray